A Dynamic Beauty Duo: Isabel and Ruben Toledo Join Forces for MAC

Isabel and Ruben shot in their Manhattan studio. Isabel hula hoops—her favorite form of exercise. "If you hula for a little bit you're light," she said.

Photo: Courtesy of MAC Cosmetics

Beauty products built on love…and lipstick.

Some people talk about love at first sight, but for Isabel (a Tony-nominated designer who devised Michelle Obama’s Inauguration Day ensemble) and Ruben Toledo (a renowned artist commissioned by the likes of Louis Vuitton) who met at age 13, it was love at first lipstick. “Have you ever not seen me in red?” Isabel asks her husband and collaborator on the vast range of 45 products for MAC Cosmetics bowing February 5. “She can define the whole world in red, but different reds—different intensities of red. She really has her vocabulary of reds down,” Ruben explained. It should come as no surprise, then, that the collection includes not just one crimson bullet, but six variations on the shade—allowing the world to learn her entire lipstick lexicon in just a few swipes. Matching glosses were also a must-have for Isabel—helping women create a multidimensional look via layering (a trend spotted on the Spring ’15 runways). “You’re putting on the same coloration, but a different texture of it, which is very close to fashion, to clothing,” she noted. “You could choose to do matte [lipstick] on the bottom and shine on the top. It’s almost like how you put fabrics together.” Since the two regularly finish one another’s sentences, Ruben chimed in, “There’s a story happening and it’s very subtle.”

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Photo: Courtesy of MAC Cosmetics

The duo didn’t stop there: Their extensive palette includes soft lilacs, neutral browns, true blues, and a pop of lime for eyes (reminiscent of Isabel’s “New Wave” phase and time spent under the disco ball at Studio 54). And the black-white-and-red packaging designed by Ruben (a sneak peek of what’s to come is seen in the sketch above) is as eye-catching as the colors inside. “I wanted the outside to be graphic, and then I wanted the inside to be where the softness was,” said Isabel. Ruben’s longtime muse (his wife and her signature ruby mouth) inspired the illustration scrawled across shadow cases and nail polish bottles. “Who else?” he quipped. “It’s the face I draw again and again and always. It’s just in the flow of my hand, Isabel’s face.” As for whether he’ll be using MAC lipsticks as his new medium, Ruben said, “I tried, but the point wears off like that [snaps fingers]—I have a heavy hand! I break my pencil tips really fast, so you can imagine lipsticks don’t last very long.”